Engaging the Audience Quotes

Yet through delivery orators succeed, I feel that I am far behind indeed.

Standing up here 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for somebody to throw you the next fish, is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people. I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time.

And I get so nervous now when it's not my show, like I'm not the headliner, because I know that those fans are there for another artist. Many people might not know an upcoming artist, but I've grown to like those shows because if I can control a crowd that doesn't know me, I'm doing my job as an entertainer. I have to rise to the occasion.

When I write I pretend I'm telling a story to someone in the room and I don't want them to get up until I'm finished.

I think it's because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Colour is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn't necessarily reach the heart.

I've done a lot of pilots, and they're all so expositional. In the beginning, I think that it is important to make sure that the audience is invested in us.

I've discovered I prefer to prepare a few notes or actually write the speech so I can really hone it down to hopefully be entertaining, try and get a laugh at least by the second line, and then say what you need to say.

I think it gets boring (for the audience) for the lead singer to have a guitar hanging on them all the time.

Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

What shouldn't you do if you're a young playwright? Don't bore the audience! I mean, even if you have to resort to totally arbitrary killing on stage, or pointless gunfire, at least it'll catch their attention and keep them awake. Just keep the thing going any way you can.

Ah, the first rule of public speaking -- always start with a joke.

It is not enough for poems to be fine; they must charm, and draw the mind of the listener at will.

I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more.

You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.

You have to work the crowd.

There is a reason there is no such thing as a folk writer. But to be a writer you have learn what it takes to captivate a reader in order to make them turn the page. And in order to learn that, you have to read.

All "bad" presentations struggle to keep the audience interested. The audience squirms wishing they could escape. The audience has given the presenter an hour of their life, so they want that hour to be useful. It's disrespectful of a presenter to not show up rehearsed and prepared with information and insights that will improve the lives of the audience in some way. Presenting will do only one of two things for you: it will either diminish your credibility or yield results. Most bad presentations hurt the presenter's credibility.

I like talking; I like playing with the audience.

When you're running for president you have to take some risks and you've got to show people something fresh and you've got to stay interesting.

When you show up to speak publically, you have to show up to give. You always know the ones who do and the ones who don't.

I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment. Sometimes you can get too into your head when you're in a scene.

What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money.

In an outdoor environment, you need to be more energetic. The attention of the crowd begins to wander - not like an indoor concert where the audience attention is riveted on to the stage.

You don't look down at your feet. A lot of comedians want to look down at their feet, but you break contact with the audience.

I don't have a lot of time in the sermon anyway. The sermon is only 25 minutes, which to me is frighteningly short. So I feel as if I need to get into that pretty quickly and make it as practical and accessible as possible.